July 30, 2011

I'll tell you who I'll blame. I'll blame everyone who thought about the debt-ceiling crisis in that form, which reveals that it's all been jockeying for position in the next election. Interestingly, asking that question now is part of the jockeying.

Klein, ever biased in favor of Democrats, accordingly says:

In a 2010 paper presented at the American Political Science Association’s annual conference, Asger Lau Andersen, David Dreyer Lassen and Lasse Holbøll Westh Nielsen tried to take a systematic look at....

Oh! Good Lord! I'm crushed under the weight of the appearance of scholarship. Those names! Lasse Holbøll Westh Nielsen? A sketch comedy writer could not concoct a better name to exude the aura of pretentious loftiness.

But, hell! It's systematic. No way it's ammunition for the partisan Klein to use to urge the GOP to... as they say... compromise.

... Voters don’t like budgetary breakdowns. More interesting was how voters apportion blame. “While governors are punished only when part of a unified government, legislatures are (almost) always punished.”
This suggests that when one party controls the government, voters blame them for budgetary breakdowns. But when the two parties split control, the executive is able to float above the squabbling in the legislature, or at least heavily influence the way the public assigns fault. “Governors may be more adept at the blame game that sometimes follows failures to finish a budget on time,” the authors speculate.

Got that? The executive, Obama, may be able to "float above" the divided legislature, which is "(almost) always punished."

Got that, Republicans? You will be punished if you don't cave compromise.

66 comments:

That headline occasioned some discussion around this houseful of grammar nazis last night. We decided that the WaPo could have kept the grammar, lost the prissiness, and added some readability by using "Who'll be blamed for debtageddon?" instead.

Oh! Good Lord! I'm crushed under the weight of the appearance of scholarship. Those names! Lasse Holbøll Westh Nielsen? A sketch comedy writer could not concoct a better name to exude the aura of pretentious loftiness.

While I agree with you here, 100%, weren't you the one who dissed the Sarah Palin movie because it didn't have any pontificating professors in their studies?

"We decided that the WaPo could have kept the grammar, lost the prissiness, and added some readability by using "Who'll be blamed for debtageddon?" instead."

I don't see how that's keeping the grammar. You'd have to say: "Whom'll be blamed..." But nobody ever says "whom'll." The only reason for saying "whom'll" ever would be if you were writing poetry and you needed a rhyme for... something that rhymes with "whom'll."

No, it's "Who'll be blamed." The easy way to figure out which is right is to substitute "he" for "who" and "him" for "whom." It would be "He'll be blamed," never "Him'll be blamed."

It would, however, be "The public will blame him" or "Will the public blame him?" rather than "The public will blame he" or "Will the public blame he?" That's why the original headline was technically correct.

Klein and his side have been trying to lay out some sort of strained intellectual narrative to justify Obama the past two weeks. If you have to explain stuff in these terms it means your guy is losing the argument.

There was a Peggy Noonan column yesterday I believe about how no one really likes Obama personally, even his supporters. He just doesn't inspire anyone anymore. We will see a lot of these type of columns as we head into 2012 IMO.

Why does Klein studiously ignore the inconvenient truth that the democrats had full control for two years and never produced a budget? Along comes 2010 and the House is turned over to the Republicans who are supposed to draw a line in the budget sand. The inference being that the democrats just had their hands slapped for inaction.

With the same logic as the Wisconsin recall nonsense, the democrats at the federal level attempt to leverage the hand slap to further their own ends. Why, you may ask? The democrats in power believe the American public is stupid and ignorant.

2012 will prove whether they are correct or not. Hopefully, the American voter will rise up and take offense at this insult to their common sense.

The function of grammar, the only function of grammar, is to promote clarity. "Whom" designates an object, "who" designates a subject. In use, though, the hearer can easily distinguish one from the other by context, so "whom" is falling out of use. I'm amused by those who defend language rules because they are rules. Grammar is an observation of language, not a law, and languages whose grammar is not in flux are dead languages.

the 'debt ceiling crisis' is just the latest DC parlor game- who will win, who will lose, who will be seen to win or lose. It's pure politics. And what's good for America? Feh! Way down the list of what's important.

Congress = 535 reprobates putting their own political survival ahead of what's good for the country.

We're screwed, and we're doomed to watch it all, helplessly, in slow motion.

That this is a mess of the democrats own making doesn't mean the republicans have carte blanche to do as they will. What amazes me is how petty it all is. I'd be fine using the debt ceiling as leverage to actually do something like cut a chunk out of the big entitlements but instead it is the same old kick the can down the road accounting tricks.

I'm sure of one thing: it's not MY fault. I've been paying many times more than what I take out for decades. If I hadn't payed so much, I can guarantee you many people would have jobs today who now don't, and they would be manufacturing jobs busy innovating and building useful products made in the U.S. The result would be even higher revenues than what they got from me. Stupid leftists. I'm pissed because this stupidity sucked much of the power out of a lifetime of my hard work.

Now multiply that by a million and you have the current U.S. economy. We are left with few jobs and the worst kind of jobs, and the people don't know how to do much more than shuffle paper and click their keyboards.

I would expect that Obama will get the majority of the blame, simply by virtue of being the most well known person involved.

Obama has been panting for a repeat of the Clinton era government shutdown, where Gingrich and Dole took the majority of the blame. But Boehner is much lower key than Gingrich, has been negotiating in good faith, and has actually passed a bill through the House. It's hard to believe that voters will go out of their way to blame the man in the gray suit.

The other factor is that Obama is not Clinton. Clinton was amazing at seizing the moment. You'd just sit and steam and watch him do his thing. He was just better at politics than the republicans.

You couldn't pull off a maneuver like this against Clinton, because Clinton with a month's worth of high visibility press conferences would have taken over the debate.

I remember thinking that the people who thought Hillary's campaign was unstoppable were forgetting that Hillary isn't Bill. Now I think that the people who think Obama will effortlessly assign blame to the Republicans and get off scot free himself are forgetting that Obama isn't Bill Clinton, either.

The other factor is that Obama is not Clinton. Clinton was amazing at seizing the moment. You'd just sit and steam and watch him do his thing. He was just better at politics than the republicans.

You couldn't pull off a maneuver like this against Clinton, because Clinton with a month's worth of high visibility press conferences would have taken over the debate.

I remember thinking that the people who thought Hillary's campaign was unstoppable were forgetting that Hillary isn't Bill. Now I think that the people who think Obama will effortlessly assign blame to the Republicans and get off scot free himself are forgetting that Obama isn't Bill Clinton, either.

The problem is TeaParty supporters are not WaPo's public. To begin with: they were "insane" to oppose Obamacare, WaPo's public supported; they are insane to find Obama incompetent, WaPo's public believe Obama is brilliant; TeaPartiers are insane to ridicule TOTUS mouth piece, WaPo's public found the One who was yet to utter a coherent thought eloquent. Yeah, WaPo's public will blame the insane Tea Partiers and the inept Republicans, will idolize the no-plan Reid, and secret-plan Obama. Unfortunately, WaPo's public is shrinking by the minute.

The most amazing thing in all of this is that Obama has proven to be politically tone deaf.

Obama had a chance to lock in his next election and write himself into the history books as a good, if not great, president (regardless of whether he was or not) and blew it.

I'm stunned at Obama's deference to Senate democrats as a whole. All he needed was three. That's it. Just how piss poor do you have to be at politics to not get three senators of your own party to vote your way?

With over 10% of our economy now based on the accumulation of debt, and government deficits growing at a rate exceeding the growth of GDP, not even the evisceration of America's wealthiest, entrepreneurs, and managers, would offer a sustainable future.

So, the federal government receives approximately $2 trillion in receipts and is running an account deficit of over $1.5 trillion. First, this cannot continue. Second, where is all of that money going? Third, how does this fiscal flood affect the purchasing power of individuals and nations that value their currency with respect to the dollar?

As with previous decadent civilizations suffering from a progressive decline, maybe we should just enjoy the good life for as long as it lasts. It's not like our population is sustainable anyway, following the sexual revolution and normalization of other subversive behaviors (e.g., abortion, pornography, "modern" families).

Those who embrace the inescapable aspects of the natural order will inherit the Earth and the product of our labor. Those who also embrace the enlightened order (i.e., rejection of superior or exceptional dignity) will be the most productive.

If that was true the Dems would have never gotten stomped in the Obamacare debate and had to push it through the back door and lost 65 house seats as a result.

Talk radio probably reaches way more people than MSNBC or the NYT combined.

I was careful to allow for notable exceptions, of which Obamacare was one. But as the dealers in Vegas would say, one winning hand does not make a rich poker player. And I think the off-year GOP victory was about more than Obamacare.

My citation of MSNBC and NYT was merely emblematic. The strength and totality of MSM opinion influence is more than talk radio, FoxNews and conservative blogs combined. And the Left also commands the academics, the intellectuals and the artists in our society. I wish it was not so.

Washington has cried wolf one too many times with me. All it does now is put a deadline out there and state that the world will end if it doesn't get a deal done. Sorry, all that has done is create crap legislation.

It's all a political game akin to a reality show. The politicians and the punditry need to create drama and the potential for doom in order to justify their quest for power. The last thing the likes of Ezra Klein wants to do is study some committee meeting on farm subsidies. He wants to be a player in the big game, but the game needs the appearance of big stakes to make it worth his while.

I think the MSM perspective is becoming different from Joe Schmoe's view. (I'm basing this off of the most recent Gallup polls showing a change in the public's view of Obama, but the MSM continuing their same party-line rhetoric.) In the MSM's lust to prop up Obama, they may have inadvertently lost some power to sway public opinion. If this is true, that is a mighty victory.

If this is true, it also means that Rs will blame Ds/Obama, Ds will blame Rs/TP, and people who aren't paying attention will probably just say Washington is a mess (until it hits their pocketbook, in which case they'll blame Obama -- for no reason other than they don't know enough about the players in the game to blame anyone other than the man in charge).

Oh, and the MSM will obviously blame the Tea Party. 1. Easier target than Republicans (since blaming Republicans might make them appear "biased".)2. TP attack headlines sell.3. Guerrilla warfare. Classifying the Tea Party as extremist terrorists is a way to not only attack TP-pols who haven't otherwise been recently involved with anything newsworthy. It's also a way to sideways-style call anyone from Bachman to Perry a terrorist without having to back the claim or take any real heat.

The Tea Party held Congress hostage! Hostage-takers are terrorists! The Tea Partiers are terrorists! The Tea Party likes Rick Perry! Rick Perry is a terrorist! The Tea Party likes the Constitution! The Constitution is an outdated, terrorizing document!

I was resigned to Ezra Klein blaming the GOP and the Tea Party for everything that disappoints him, along with most of the MSM.

The President has the power to decide which parts of the government to shut down, which is a big ace in the hole, but his approval rates are plummeting as it is. Would it be a good idea to try a replay of the 1995 face off? I don't know; I'm just asking.

A little lesson on culture. Believe it or not, the whole world does not follow American cultural practices. Lasse has three names simply because it is typical to pass down mothers' maiden names across generations in Denmark. He is from a modest background, and worked incredibly hard to get where he is. He is one of the most humble and kind people you could ever meet.